Learning To Read Transcript
Joyce Walker (2009-03-28)

>>JOYCE: Alright, I'll tell them my very favorite early literacy stories.  I knew how to read before I went to kindergarten because my brother, who was a year and half the older than me, was already in kindergarten and my mom was trying to teach him how to read.  We had a book, it was a Disney book, and goofy was in it.  We were sitting there and I was reading a book.  My mom would pause and say, "Sound out the word," and I would say the word.  And my brother was getting really mad because I could read and he couldn't and he's a year older than me.  And so my mom made me leave.  She said that she was reading with Chris now and that I had to go.  I said, "Ok." What's funny about that story is that my brother doesn't remember it.  He refuses to remember that I could read before he could even though my mom remembered it.  He's like, "No, I don't think that was true." 
There's another story about my literacy.  Before I could read, I thought I could read and I would make up words.  So people would ask me, "Do you know what that says?" And I would say, "I know what that says." And then I would read it.  My grandmother has a story about my pre reading.  She had a thing of dessert toppings, it was a no name brand.  It said "dessert topping".  And so I said, "I can read that." And she said, "You can?!" And I said, "Yes! D-E-S-S-E-R-T-T-O-P-P-I-N-G" And she was like, "No, that's not it." So I don't know when I started really learning to love reading, but I remember, as a lot of my students do who like to read a lot, where somebody told them they couldn't be reading that book. "You shouldn't be reading that book, that book is over your head.  You should wait until we're all going to read that together." But they would tell me the story and I would tell them that in my grade school they use to let me go off into the corner and read.  During class reading time, they would let me go off into the corner and read.  Maybe that's where I began thinking that it was just the absolute best thing that you could ever do, because it meant that you got to do something special while everyone else had to read aloud.  That's it. [Laughter]